Saturday, November 17, 2012

Legitimate and Illegitimate Violence

Gaza vs. Israel: Legitimate and Illegitimate Use of Violence in the Western Discourse

We hear news that the Israeli state has called up 75,000 reserves
and is planning for a ground invasion. I continue to hear loud
explosions of air raids surround our home in Saftawi, Gaza. The constant
buzzing of the Israeli drone has become part of the backdrop of this
weapons battle. I hear news that Hamas shot down two Israeli F-16s. I
hear news that an Israeli drone was shot down late last night. I hear
the rockets continue to be launched from locations around Gaza and reach
the outskirts of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The shape of these two forms
of violence shows how a state is able to launch a war and how a
non-state movement is able to resist it. As bombs continue to rain down
on Gaza and rockets continue to break the Iron Dome and make it into
Israel, a review of dominant mainstream media sites in the West and
Western governments reveals a very skewed understanding on the
(il)-legitimate use of violence.

Two days ago, on November 14th 2012, a potential ceasefire between
the state of Israel and resistant factions on in the Gaza strip was
broken when Israel launched the targeted assassination of Ahmed
al-Jabari, the leader of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigade. All Gazans
immediately knew what this meant: there would be a retaliation launched
by Hamas, a war of bombs and rockets would soon escalate and it would
most likely continue. Gazans knew they would be bombarded with shelling
from the sea, the sky and potentially land as ground forces would
approach Gaza’s eastern border. This is exactly what happened; and two
days later this battle of weapons between Israel and Palestinian
movements including Hamas is going strong.

However, through the eyes of Western government and mainstream media
some of these killing apparatus are regarded as legitimate and others
are not. The F-16, the Apache helicopter, the drone, the bomb are
weapons that the US, the UK, the EU can understand and relate to. They
should as they are large importers of Israeli military and intelligence
technology. The rocket, homemade from donkey shit and sugar or
fabricated using Iranian technology is a weapon that is foreign to
Western discourses on legitimate forms of killing. While both apparatus
have maimed and killed civilians and military targets over the last two
days, the bomb dropped is a more comfortable thought in the minds of the
BBC watcher in England than the rocket being launched from a
Palestinian resistance fighter into Israel. These western narratives
forget that the rocket is used by the lesser military power in this
asymmetrical bomb competition between Israel and Gaza. It neglects that
resistant fighters in Gaza don’t use high performance jets or
helicopters, not because they elect for a more brute or savage weapon;
no, they use the rocket because they don’t have drones who can target
identified military leaders from hundreds of meters up. They don’t have
the military technology, power or resources to send fighter jets to Tel
Aviv or launch a naval battle from the Mediterranean. They do not enjoy
the support of the largest military power around the globe to assist it
in making its attacks more “surgical”.

Benjamin Netanyahu felt comfortable enough to call Israeli attacks on
Gaza as “surgical” (quoted in Al-jazeera “Rockets aim at Tel Aviv as
conflict escalates”). The doctors of war proceed with great precision,
although I would urge to strongly disagree with Netanyahu’s comments, as
the death toll of civilians grows to twenty-nine and over two hundred
injured in Gaza. However, Israel feels that it is a waging a
professional war on Gaza, which is somehow more legitimate than the
Palestinian retaliation attacks. And Western media and government voices
support this reasoning, not only through their unbraided political and
economic support for Israel, but also through their continued narration
of the bomb competition between Gaza and Israel: through Western media
and government there are clearly good guys and bad guys. Foreign
Secretary William Hague says, “Hamas bears principal responsibility for
the current crisis. I utterly condemn rocket attacks from Gaza into
southern Israel by Hamas and other armed groups.” In addition, to this
western media and government narratives support a most controversial
concept that the Israeli life is worth more than the Palestinian. As
Israeli deaths make the headlines, the Palestinian death is always
included as a secondary. The killing of civilians in war is wrong and
must be avoided at all costs, but unfortunately it continues to happen.
Gaza is a 12km by 40km territory populated by 1.5 million Palestinians
lives, when an Israeli bomb lands here a civilian will lose its life;
this is regarded as collateral damage and is excused on this regard of
legitimate mistakes of war. When Hamas or other factions send rockets
into Israel and approximate urban areas, civilians are also at risk;
however, the Western discursive understanding of this damage to life is
regarded as terroristic and the brutal intention of an illegitimate body
waging an illegitimate form of war.

All Palestinian resistant movements are referred to as militants or
terrorists. Western media sources feel comfortable awarding
responsibility for all attacks on Israel as being launched by that
“terrorist organisation”: Hamas. Hamas, who although has strongly
avoided the topic of elections in recent years, it was once upon time
the democratic elected body of Palestine. Hamas was also not responsible
for the rockets launched prior reaching the ceasefire on November 14th,
2012 before the assassination of Ahmed al-Jabari; Hamas’s military wing
leader. The blowing up of one of its leader was bound to bring Hamas
into this violence, which at least initially, it was trying to avoid.
Many Gazans critique Hamas for not maintaining its resistance stance
against Israel. However, Hamas has now forcefully taken up the mode of
retaliation following the assassination of its leader; I stress that
Hamas’s armed response comes as no surprise. However, Western media
sources and governments were too quick to label Hamas attacks as
uncalled-for militarist action. The argument that Hamas was compelled to
respond to the assassination of one of its leaders does not enter
western political or media discussions.

I would like to ask a question of these dominant Western discourses.
In their mind who is allowed to legitimately resist against Israel?
According to Westerns news media all resistant fighters in Palestine are
militants. Israel, as a western favored state, is allowed to target and
assassinate Hamas government and military officials: March 2004, Gaza:
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of Hamas, killed by missile strike, April
2004, Gaza: Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, co-founder and leader of Hamas,
killed in missile strike, January 2009, Gaza: Said Siyam, senior Hamas
commander, killed in air strike and now, November 2012, Gaza City: Ahmed
Said Khalil al-Jabari, commander of Hamas' military wing, just to name a
few. This precision killing is regarded as a legitimate form of
violence. Hamas or other movements working from within Gaza are
legitimate targets because they are regarded as militants or terrorists;
their retaliation attacks, however, are regarded as illegitimate
because they are from non-state militants or terrorists. So Palestinian
military and political leaders can be legitimately targeted but they are
not allowed to legitimately retaliate.

Palestinian factions represent a non-state (as we all know way to
well Palestine does not have its state yet) and therefore, any form of
violence Palestinian movements engage in will be, by de facto, that of a
non-state actor. War or violence launched by a non-state actor, is so
quickly coupled with militant or terrorist in the western discourse on
legitimate uses of violence. Palestine continues to be forbidden its
status and capability as a viable state; how then is Palestine meant to
resist its occupation, when Israeli leaders wage their own war on
Palestine and simultaneously work so energetically and aggressively to
dissallow its status as a state? How are Gazan resistant movements,
which do enjoy almost unanimous support from the entire Gaza population,
meant to resist in a way which is legitimate to western governments? If
these Western narratives were more dedicated to their own professed
adherence to human rights then they would not be able to stand in
defence of Israel. According to the Geneva Conventions a people under
occupation have the legal right to resist their occupation; this Article
1 (4) of Protocol 1 stresses that force may be used to pursue the right
of self-determination. States and actors who attempts to suppress the
Palestinian right to resist violent occupation is in direct
contradiction with the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration on Human
Rights and the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial
Countries and Peoples, which all legally aim to provide support to those
fighting colonial regimes. The Western discourse on the legitimate use
of violence needs to sensitise and educate its view: Palestinians have
the legal right to resist and that is exactly what they are doing.

Catherine Charrett is a PhD candidate at Aberystwyth University,
UK in the department of International Politics and she hold a Masters
degree from the London School of Economics. She has been a researcher in
security studies and conflict resolution in Vancouver, Barcelona,
London and she now finds herself in Gaza, where she was undergoing
research into the European response of Hamas’s success in the 2006
Palestinian Legislative Elections.

No comments:

LinkWithin

Put Guahu / About Me

This blog is dedicated to Chamorro issues, the use and revitalization of the Chamoru language and the decolonization of Guam. This blog also aims to inform people around the world about the history, culture and language and struggles of the Chamorro people, who are the indigenous islanders of Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Luta and Pagan in the Mariana Islands. Pues Haggannaihon ha', ya taitai na'ya, ya Si Yu'us Ma'ase para i finatto-mu.

Statcounter Code

The Revolution Will Not Be Haolified

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE HAOLIFIEDTinige’ as Guahu - 2003 (updated 2008)

You will not be able to ignore it che’lu * This time you will not be able to blame it all on Anghet * You will not be able to change channels * And watch Fear Factor, Rev TV of Salamat Po Guam because * The Revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised, nor will it be advertised * It will not be sponsored by the Good Guys at Moylan’s or the better guys at AK. * It will not be something easily explained by radio callers * Whether they be Positively Local, Definitively Settler, or Surprisingly Coconut * It will not be cornered by the Calvos and explained by Sabrina Salas * Matanane * After the story about the incoming B-52’s or 1000’s of Marines careening towards to Guam, and how we * should be economically energized and not terrorized. * Jon Anderson will have no TT anecdotes about it * and Chris Barnett won’t malafunkshun it because the revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised or editorialized * It will not be something canabilized with two inches here two inches there * Dubious headlines everywhere * Lee Weber will not edit it * Joe Murphy will not put it in his pipe and smoke it * Nor dream about it, or tell others the wonders and blunders of it. * There will be no letters to the editor quoting scriptures or denying its constitutionality * And there will be no American flag inserts saying these three colors just don’t run * As the revolution will not be editorialized

The revolution will not be televised or politicized * It will not play the same old gayu games * And promise you that same old talonan things. * The revolution will not wave at you as you drive by on Marine Drive * And seduce you with its hardworking eyes. * It will not be territorial or popular, and not encourage you with maolek blue. * The revolution will not put marang salaman po after its speeches to get more Filipino votes in the next election because the revolution will not be politicized

The revolution will not be televised, not be theorized * It will not be something GCC or UOG friendly. * There will be no books at Bestseller offering to help you lose something in 90 days * Or Rachel Ray helping you cook the revolution of your way. * Ron McNinch will not survey it * and will not poll people about their revolution of choice. * There will be no WASC review report demanding accountability demanding autonomy * And no beachcombing carpetbaggers will proclaim their own terminal authority * Over the histories, the laws, the thinking of those for whom they see nothing but corrupt and corrupting inferiority * The revolution will not be colonized

The revolution will not be televised, not be supersized. * The revolution will not be something you can buy at Ross, or get at blue light cost * It is not just red rice, kelaguan uhang, or popcorn with Tobacco sauce. * It doesn’t come with Coke and it doesn’t fit on a fiesta plate. * The revolution will not make you gof sinexy, cure your jafjaf, or make fragrant your fa’fa’ * The revolution will not force you to be where America’s empire begins * Or where Japan’s golf courses and Gerry Yingling’s credit card debt ends. * You won’t need a credit card, or be charged for the tin foil to cover your balutan * As the revolution will not be economized

The revolution will not be televised, blownback or militarized * There will be no more physical ordnance buried in people’s lands * And no more patrionizing propaganda buried in people’s minds * The revolution will not get you cheaper cases of chicken or increased commissary privileges. * It will not make freedomless flags feel more comfortable in your hands * Or make uniforms fit more snugly around your mind. * The revolution will not deny racism or exploitation * And not create histories about landfalls of destiny * But instead publicize the racism and evils of American hegemony. * The revolution will not be subsidized by construction contracts or the race of Senator Inouye or Congressman Burton * It will not be laid waste to by daisy cut budgets or Medicare spending limits * Instead it will be sustained by deep memories that refuse to die * The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised and will not polarize based on blood or color * It will not make your skin lighter * It will not make your skin darker * It will not test your blood the way Hitler or Uncle Sam would of done * It will not hate some and love others based on their time of naturalization * Or incept date of their compacts of free association. * But the revolution will help some find comfort, find strength, find power * In their connections to the land and to each other * Allow some to discover the sovereignty that can be found in solidarity * The revolution will take and remake this consciousness that doesn’t need to be televised * But does need to be revolutionized * The revolution will not be haolified * The revolution will not be haolified